(tales from the birdgirl)
April 2016
In the Northern Hemisphere, they call it Indian summer:
a hot, dry start to Autumn.
That’s what we had here last month —
— warm, sunny days.
Still nights.
No rain.
In the bush,
dry twigs crackled beneath my feet,
and the odd flower bloomed.
Winter stole closer,
like afternoon shadows
creeping across sandy ground.
Other people’s words about … running
I’ve been reading Y Lee’s lemonpi blog on and off for years. She is Australian and she loves to bake. What more can I say?
I was tickled by her recent post entitled When exercise ruins your waistline, in which she says how much she loves running, and then adds:
Running gives me time to think. Unfortunately, most of my ‘thinking’ tends to veer sharply towards the solemn contemplation of potential baked goods (thereby negating all the good work that running accomplishes). Which is incidentally how I came about to make a big batch of shortcrust pastry.
Inspired by this thinking, I went for a big long walk on the beach (my current version of running), and conjured up visions of what I might bake next … Not good for the waistline, assuredly, but very good for the spirit!
The other day, in a dark moment, I was trying to compile a list of things that make me feel better when I’m feeling bad.
(I write these lists often. You can draw your own conclusions about what this says about me!)
One of the things that’s always on my list of consolations is: CAKE.
Cake never fails, right?
Lovely blogger Stacy Ladenburger talks about this over on her blog Delightful Crumb.
Her solution is something she calls ‘Everyday Cake’ —
a cake to eat and bake through all life’s trials and tribulations.
Everyday cake.
Even the idea consoles me …
Note:
I have never posted a recipe on my blog, and don’t intend to. One reason is my self-imposed word limit. It’s hard to publish a recipe in a post that’s 101 words or less.
But if you would like a recipe for everyday cake, I’d try Stacy’s recipes here and here.
And whatever recipe you try, I hope that baking and eating the end-result will console you as I have found it consoles me…
Other people’s words about … headaches
One of the things I love about reading is the sense of kinship
you can find in another person’s words.
Sometimes, the smallest phrases from a book sing true.
Since he left, a headache had followed Laura, the kind like a bird that settles and soars.
from ‘Questions of Travel’
by Michelle de Kretser(p. 177)
Sometimes I, like Laura, get headaches that come over me, varying in intensity —
for a few hours, or days, or weeks.
Medication doesn’t help:
and I’ve learned just to sit the headache out.
… she could feel a headache coming on, the close-fitting, all-over kind like a swimming cap made of lead.
(p. 498)
So I find solace and companionship in these words of Michelle de Kretser.
I may never meet her.
But I know how her world is coloured,
and I know that she is kin.
Sometimes, in early Autumn, the days become sunny in a way utterly unlike summer.
The mornings are cool.
There’s a brief wave of heat in the afternoon,
before coolness returns with evening.
22 March 2016
12.12 pm
I wish you could hear the sounds accompanying today’s photo.
It was still.
Hot.
Intensely sunny.
I could hear gulls’ legs moving through the water,
and tiny rock-creatures made bubbling noises beneath the surface.
By late April, this weather will vanish,
and the grey skies of Autumn will begin.
You have to treasure these moments, don’t you?
Treasure them.
Treasure them.
Recently, out bushwalking, I came across a bunch of kangaroos
bivouacking under the trees.
I felt as though I had gate-crashed on their gathering.
One of the females certainly let me know how she felt about my intrusion.
So I left them to their party …
If you are ever in need of an answer or feel a little lost in this great big world, go out there and hit the trails. Leave the Garmin at home and just get out there and be. Connect with nature. Listen to the whispers of breeze in the trees or the ramblings of the nearby stream. Eventually, you will find what you are looking for and perhaps, in time, you will find yourself as well.
The words I’ve quoted above come from the blog So what? I run.
(Read the whole post here.)
For me, they apply whether I’m walking or running.
Because of my knee injury, it’s all about walking for me right now.
And I’m okay with that.
It’s all about the connection with the world around me:
it’s vital.
It’s healing.
And in the spirit of the quote above,
I’m posting today some photos from one of my favourite walks.
You don’t need phones or apps or pedometers or fitbits.
You just need time to look,
to listen,
to breathe.
As I mentioned in my previous post,
there is something about the colour of the sea in summer.
The quality of blue is different from other times of the year.
It’s silky blue.
Pearly blue.
The truest kind of blue.
Blue sky.
Blue sea.
Bluer than blue.
A celebration of blue.
Sometimes, in mid-summer, when the wind is easterly,
the sea looks like a sheet of blue silk
unfurling over the sand.
twenty-one words 